Digital Commons Network^™

A Concept That Invites A Personal Definition, Christopher Kanyusik

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Circle Formation Algorithm For Autonomous Agents With Local Sensing, Andrew Mario Michael

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Research on cooperative robotics has increased radically over the past decade due to its simplicity and applicability in a variety of fields. Shape formation plays an important role in such cooperative behavior. Our work deals with the formation of a circle by a group of mobile agents (robots) that initially are randomly spread and randomly oriented in an unmapped terrain. The agents have simple characteristics and limited capabilities. They are autonomous, homogeneous, anonymous, and memory-less. They do not communicate with each other, but are able to measure the inter-agent distances and angels. The agents follow the same distributed algorithm synchronously …

An Evaluation Of The Use Of Technical Conservation Measures Within The Inshore Mixed Fishery Of Dingle Bay, Co. Kerry, Ireland., Tony Holmes

Theses

Discarding has been identified as a global problem in fisheries. ICES, the EU and national governments have prioritised studying discarding as an area of research. In conjunction with Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), the Marine Institute, Institute of Technology, Tralee and the Dingle Bay Inshore Management Development committee a study of the impacts of incorporating technical conservation measures (TCM’s) into trawls was undertaken. TCM’s under investigation included 80mm and 90mm square mesh panels inserted in the top-sheet before the cod-end, 100mm codends and a separator trawl. It was found that boats using 100mm cod-ends produced less discards than when towing standard …

Parametric Synthesis Of Sign Language, Jerome Allen

Theses

The isolation of the deaf community from mainstream society is in part due to the lack of knowledge most hearing people have of sign language. To most, there seems to be little need to learn a language that is spoken by such a small minority unless perhaps a relative is unable to hear. Even with a desire to learn, the task may seem insurmountable due to the unique formational and grammatical rules of the language.

This linguistic rift has led to the call for an automatic translation system with the ability to take voice or written text as input and …

Application Of Bootstrap Resampling In Fmri, Arthika Bappal

Theses

This thesis demonstrates the use of the bootstrap resampling technique considering temporal dependency in the fMRI data to determine the reliability and confidence interval of fMRI parameters. Traditionally, the test-retest method has been used to reliably detect active voxels in the fMRI image of the brain, which is based on repetitive experimentation. The main concern with the test-retest method is the reproducibility of data over these multiple repetitions. Fatigue, habituation, motion artifacts, and repositioning errors are few of the factors, which can affect the reproducibility of data.

The conventional bootstrap resampling technique is based on the assumption that the dataset …

An In Vitro Evaluation Of Tyrosine Derived Polyarylates And Polycarbonate As Polymeric Scaffold For Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells Osteogenic Differentiation, Manish Suresh Godbole

Theses

Human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) obtained from the adult bone marrow are multipotential cells that are capable of differentiating along several lineages. They are readily available and abundant source of cells in the field of tissue engineering. For their use in treating certain connective tissue defect or disorders, their success depends at minimum on the use of scaffolds that support differentiation. Therefore , this thesis details a study that systematically evaluated hMSC differentiation on materials that exhibit gradual range in surface properties as a first study for selecting materials as potential scaffolds. Polycarbonates and polyarylates have combinatorial libraries that exhibit …

Extrusion And Evaluation Of Degradation Rate And Porosity Of Small Diameter Collagen Tubes, Bipinkumar G. Patel

Theses

The limited availability of autografts and failure of small diameter synthetic vascular grafts has stimulated continuing efforts to develop small diameter vascular grafts based on natural materials. The small diameter collagen tubes were extruded using bovine collagen type I. The biodegradation rate was determined and compared for small diameter collagen tubes crosslinked with glutaraldehyde and N-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)-N'-ethylcarbodiimide hydrochloride (EDC) and Nhydroxysuccinimide (NHS) to evaluate physio-chemical properties. The samples were also evaluated for their surface area and porosity using mercury porosimeter. The noncrosslinked tubes almost completely degraded after 2 hours. The tubes crosslinked with EDC/NHS degraded slower than the ones crosslinked with …

Spinning Of Collagen Fibers And Characterizing Thermal, Mechanical, Tensile And Structural Properties, Grace Evangelin Tatagiri

Theses

Collagen is the most important building block in the entire animal world. It plays an important role in regeneration of broken bones and wound healing, also helps grow blood vessels to feed the healing areas. The use of synthetic materials has been extensive, but these materials have there own limits and drawbacks. Poor biocompatibility of these materials is the main issue and often result in inflammations. Hence collagen is being heralded as one of the most appropriate replacement as an implantable material. The reasons being that it is a naturally occurring material, exhibits high biocompatibility low antigenicity and host response. …

Evaluation Of Effect Of Extrusion Process Variables On Mechanical Properties Of Extruded Collagen Tubes And Effect Of Post Extrusion Treatments, Mayank K. Patel

Theses

This study evaluated the effect of extrusion process variable on mechanical properties of extruded collagen tubes made using a specialized extruder, made by ZOKO Corporation of Czechoslovakia. Three extrusion variables were considered; extrusion speed, linear draw rate and rotation speed. Using Taguchi L₄ matrix, a design of experiment (DOE) was run. Two mechanical properties, wall thickness and estimated elastic modulus, were considered as response of this DOE. Data was analyzed statically to evaluate the effect of extrusion variables on both these properties. Result of this study showed that linear draw rate of the extrusion process has the highest influence …

Effects Of Sleep Deprivation On Autonomic Nervous System, Jaeyeaon Cho

Theses

Sleep deprivation (SD) has been thought a potential factor to trigger cardiovascular events by increasing the sympathetic nervous system activity. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the relationship between sleep deprivation and the autonomic nervous system activity by means of heart rate variability (HRV) and blood pressure variability (BPV). All data were acquired in the sleep lab of Columbia University.

Data were acquired from the two groups, SD and control. Subjects in the SD group did not sleep for thirty-six hours but subjects in the control group slept at night as usual. There were five different data …

Fabrication Of Nanofiber Scaffolds By Electrospinning And It's Potential For Tissue Engineering, Shobana Shanmugasundaram

Theses

Electrospinning is a fabrication process that uses an electric field to control the deposition of polymer fibers on to a target substrate. This electrospinning strategy can be used to fabricate fibrous polymer mats composed of fiber diameters ranging from several microns down to tens of nanometers. This study assesses the potential of electrospinning, as an alternative scaffold fabrication technique for tissue engineering applications. In this study, electrospinning is adapted to produce tissue-engineering scaffolds of two different size ranges composed of non-woven poly-L-lactide (PLLA) nanofibers and as a first study, the potential use of these scaffolds as tissue engineering scaffolds was …

Processing And Optimization Of Natural Fiber Reinforced Composites Using Date Palm Fibers, Khalifa Musabbeh Suwaidan Hamad Al-Kaabi

Theses

During the last twenty years, ecological concerns have resulted in a renewed interest in natural materials. Composite materials usually depend on using man-made fibers as the reinforcing element. The possibility of using natural fibers instead of synthetic fibers is gaining acceptance among users. This work aims to investigate the possibility of extracting natural fibers from date palm trees to be used as reinforcement with polymeric materials. The objective was achieved by characterizing fibers through different chemical, physical and mechanical tests and using different treatment methods in order to modify the fiber properties. Date Palm Fibers (DPF) exhibit a cylindrical shape …

Extra-Pair Fertilization, Mate Choice And Genetic Similarity In The Mexican Jay (Aphelocoma Ultramarina), John Andrew Eimes

Theses

Inbreeding depression should select for the ability of females to avoid inbreeding or minimize its effects. We tested for a relationship between genetic similarity of social pairs and the occurrence of extra-pair fertilization (EPF) in the Mexican jay (Aphelocoma ultramarina), a bird species with known inbreeding depression and a high EPF rate (Brown and Brown 1998, Li and Brown 2000). Multi-locus minisatellite and microsatellite DNA fingerprinting were used to detect extra-pair young and measure genetic similarity between social parents. We found that 15 of 38 (39%) nests had at least one EPF and 21 of 115 (18%) young …

Opposite Effects Of Lithium And Valproic Acid On Trophic Deprivation-Induced Gsk-3(Beta) Activation, C-Jun Expression And Neuronal Cell Death, Ning Jin

Theses

Recent studies demonstrate that lithium and valproic acid (VPA), two commonly used mood-stabilizing drugs, have neuroprotective effects against a variety of insults. Inhibition of the pro-apoptotic enzyme, glycogen synthase kinase-3P (GSK-3P), was suggested to be the mechanism of action of neuroprotection for both drugs. In this study, we tested if lithium and VPA could protect cultured cerebellar granule neurons (CGNs) from GSK-3P-mediated apoptosis induced by trophic withdrawal (serum/potassium deprivation). Lithium concentration-dependently (1-20 mM) protected CGNs. Indirubin, a specific, direct GSK-3P inhibitor, was also neuroprotective. On the contrary, VPA (1- 20 mM) did not provide any neuroprotection and even potentiated cell …

An Analysis Of The Periodicity Of The Cell Cycle And Apoptotic Regulatory Proteins In Prostate Xenografts Using Anova And Cosinor Methods, Aleen Hosdaghian

Theses

Circadian rhythms have been found in both plants and animals, in normal tissues as well as in most tumors and human cancers. By following these rhythms in healthy and cancerous tissue, it has been possible to find optimal times to deliver a dose of drug, such that efficacy is maximized and toxicity to normal tissues is minimized. In this study, the periodicity of several cell cycle and apoptotic regulatory proteins were studied in two prostate cancer models against a dietary therapeutic agent, Selenium. The ALVA-3 1 (androgen-independent) and PC-3 (androgen-independent) prostate cancer cell lines were grown in vivo, as a …

Development Of Fmri Compatible Lower Body Negative Pressure System, Pratap Singh Kunwar

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The lower body negative pressure (LBNP) system provides a controlled, measured orthostatic stress to the cardiovascular system, which can be used with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine to study cardiovascular and cerebrovascular responses to graded LBNP. In the past, even though functional MRI (fMRI) was considered as one of the best modalities with which to measure small metabolic changes in the brain, it has not been used with an LBNP system to measure cerebrovascular changes. This was due to the lack of an fMRI compatible LBNP system.

In this project, an tMRI compatible LBNP system was first constructed without …

Magneto-Rheological Fluid Orthosis For Suppressing Tremor, Hyoung-Joo Yeo

Theses

Tremor is a common movement disorder that occurs with specific neurological conditions. This condition may seriously impact daily living activities. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the possibility of the development of a wearable technology that is capable of exerting torques at a user's joints for suppressing tremor.

This thesis is based on the concept of "smart structures" which are made of Magneto-Rheological (MR) fluid that can dynamically alter its viscosity under magnetic field. The wearable tremor suppressing orthosis needs several conditions. It should be safe, light weight, simple and small in structure, and easily attachable. An …

Transmission Of Light And Audible Sound In A Synthetic Fog Medium, Bhavin Babaria

Theses

The primary goal of the thesis was to study the propagation of visible light and auditory sound through a synthetic fog medium compared to an ambient air environment. It is known that the fog substantially decreases the visibility however; this has not been studied quantitatively. Further information regarding other energies such as sound is also needed to understand how the energy reacts in the fog medium. The extent of visual and auditory degradation in humans needs to be investigated. Researchers have studied light transmitted through water, air; however, no one has studied how light or sound is transmitted through a …

Investigation Of Heart Rate Variability During Sleep Apnea, Sekar Subramanian

Theses

Sleep apnea is a disorder, where there are repetitive pauses in respiratory flow of at least 10 seconds or longer duration, and which occur more than five times per hour. Apnea has strong modulating effects on the autonomic nervous system, with prominent heart rate variation. It can be assumed that during sleep, internal influences (sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activities) dominate the autonomic nervous system; in addition repetitive apneas are accompanied by a pronounced increase in average heart rate. The aim of this study was to investigate the heart rate variability using spectral analysis and time-frequency analysis during sleep apnea. …

Speech Enabled E-Learning Technology For Adult Literacy Tutoring, Jason Meade

Theses

This research presents the work involved in developing a speech-enabled e-Learning prototype for use in literacy tutoring. As the main objective was to develop an interface for literacy learning, initial research concentrated on establishing a framework for literacy e-Leaming through the use of speech technology. Requirements for best practice e-Learning and the relevance of learning theories to an e-Learning application were also investigated. The technologies to facilitate this, such as text to speech technologies and mark-up languages, were addressed during the implementation of speech-enabled prototypes. Both server-side and client-side prototypes were implemented to investigate speech technology. Testing found the server-side …

Evaluation Of The Host Range Of Polyvalent Staphylococcal Bacteriophages To Control Mrsa (Staphylococcus Aureus) From Irish Hospitals, Mohamed Farag M. Elbreki

Theses

This study describes firstly, the assembly of a collection of a varied spectrum of staphylococci which can be used to test the efficacy of bacteriophages for the biocontrol of problematic members of this genus. The collection assembled includes a variety of multi-antibiotic resistant MRSA (methicillin resistant S. aureus) strains, hVRSA (hetero vancomycin resistant S. aureus), VRSA and also teicoplenin resistant isolates. It also included a broad range of species of coagulase-negative {non-aureus) staphylococci including S. caprea, S. haemolyticus, S. saprophyticus, S. epidermidis, S. chromogenes, S. capitis, S. hominins and S. hyicus. All strains were characterized by morphology on Baird Parker, …

Interaction And Motion, Reagan Furqueron

Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the possibilities and opportunities that occur when the element of movement is included in the design of functional objects. There is an inherent quality of interaction in functional objects; my goal is to enhance this relationship between object and user. Through this I will pursue the investigation of portability as it applies to objects in domestic settings. By incorporating elements such as handles, wheels and other hardware that suggests movement, I will make functional objects that invite interaction resulting in motion. Likewise, by introducing motion, I hope to further encourage interaction. These …

Hcc Architecture - Hormonal Communications And Control Architecture, Paul R. Thompson

Theses

This thesis aims to provide a novel framework for a multiagent system implementation. The major feature of the proposed architecture is the introduction of the biological concept of hormones. The hormones are passed via the communication network to convey limited global system state knowledge. The agents' response to a hormone is interpreted depending on its own local agent state. The primary focus of this thesis is the development of the particulars of the architecture. Prior work of multiagent systems research is reviewed and studied for contributions. Biological studies of hormones are employed to draw out interaction rules and analyze control …

Modular Display Fixture System, Young C. Lee

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Not Included

Cyclic Olefin Copolymer (Coc) In The Pharmaceutical Industry, Amgad Khalil

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The purpose of this research was to evaluate an alternative to polyvinyl chloride based packaging materials for pharmaceutical blister packaging that is neither harmful to the environment nor corrosive to the equipment used in pharmaceutical packaging. Olefin structures (PP/COC/PP) were tested and compared to halogen based material (PVC/PVDC) using the following criteria: • Moisture Vapor Transmission Rate (MVTR) • Vacuum leak test • Peel strength test • Machine ability and form-ability on an Uhlmann UPS4 thermoformer • Layer distribution • Financial impact Cyclic Olefin Copolymers (COC) was proven to have the properties required to adequately protect the product while being …

Abraham Lincoln; John Wilkes Booth. A Shared Time -- A Shared Tragedy, Patrick Neal Mccreary

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Unavailable.

The Empty Page, Julia Dover

Theses

This work is the combination of several different pieces harvested from a cluster in my graduate program that focused on writing the memoir.

Memoir writing, for those who may be unfamiliar with it, is the art of dissecting memories into pictures, textures, aromas, melodies and flavors, then reconstructing them into some coherent form so as the reader may feel as if she has lived the experience herself. This is ultimately the goal of the memoir, but I do not believe it is the purpose of writing it in the first place.

The purpose of the memoir is reflection. The writing …

Closed Material Cycles And Organic Solvent Recovery, Tim De Jong

Theses

A survey was conducted of the pharmaceutical sector in Ireland to establish organic solvent usage, recovery and treatment practices. The eleven companies covered by the survey, which included several of the worlds largest multinational companies, consumed in the region of 122,000 tonnes of organic solvent in 2002. Approximately 53,000 tonnes was recovered on-site while 69,000 tonnes of virgin solvent was brought on-site to replace that which was lost through wastewater treatment, incineration, fugitive emissions and off-site treatment or reuse. The total quantity of virgin solvent consumed by the eleven companies accounted for 75.4 % of organic solvent imports to Ireland. …

The Muddy Trail, Jonathan Kohles

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Not Included

Live Action Thesis Report "The Lost Art Of Tuning Out", Scott Anzalone

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Not Included